ACES ON BRIDGE

“None but the well-bred man knows how to confess a fault, or acknowledge himself in an error.”

-- Benjamin Franklin

Squeeze play is a weapon generally used by declarer against helpless defenders. However, today’s declarer in a knockout teams match found himself in the embarrassing situation of squeezing himself, a predicament made even worse by the fact that it was entirely his own fault.

Against three no-trump, West led the heart nine, covered by the jack, queen and king. At trick two declarer played the spade queen, which West won with the ace, to continue with a second heart.

Declarer won the heart in dummy and crossed to hand with a low diamond to his king in order to play a spade to dummy’s nine. When East showed out, he cashed the spade king and played a fourth round of the suit. East could see that if West continued with a third round of hearts, declarer would have an easy nine tricks. Therefore, he thoughtfully discarded all his hearts.

West now switched to a club to East’s queen, and East played back a diamond. Declarer won in dummy and, without giving the matter much thought, played his winning spades. At the penultimate trick he played a club from dummy and then had the embarrassing problem of what to discard. In the event, he guessed to keep the heart 10, and West took the last two tricks with the club ace and diamond jack.

Declarer’s mistake was to cash the last spade. If he simply plays a club at that stage, knocking out West’s ace, both his hand and dummy are high.

ANSWER: Once you know what this auction should mean, you won’t have any problem deciding what to do. You showed a six-card spade suit, and your partner, who limited his hand at his first turn, has now suggested an alternative contract. If he had a spade raise or a balanced hand, he would have raised spades or bid no-trump. This sequence shows a weak hand with long diamonds, so just put the dummy down.